TY - JOUR AB - The article is primarily concerned with the ambiguities which surround the concept of the person. According to the philosophical tradition taking its roots from Locke's definition, personhood depends on consciousness. Therefore, “personhood” can be ascribed to different entities, and only these entities acquire a moral standing. This can entail that a human being may or may not be considered as a person, as well as higher animals and even artificial machines. Everything depends on manifest personal characteristics. In order to sort out different meanings ascribed to “person,” I distinguish between being a person and acting as a person. Then, I show that a human being is a paradigm of the person and his being always precedes his acting. AU - Hołub, Grzegorz DO - 10.5840/forphil200813222 KW - Persons; human beings; personality; consciousness M1 - 2 M3 - Article N1 - Armstrong, Susan J., and Richard George Botzler, eds. The Animal Ethics Reader. London: Routledge, 2003. Brody, Baruch A., and H. Tristram Engelhardt, eds. Bioethics: Readings & Cases. Englewoods Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1987. Cavalieri, Paola, and Peter Singer. “The Great Apes Project.” In Peter. Singer, Unsanctifying Human Life. Essays on Ethics, edited by Helga Kuhse, 128–141. Oxford; Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2002. Clarke, W. Noris. Explorations in Metaphysics. Notre Dame; London: University of Notre Dame Press, 1994. DeGrazia, David. “On the Question of Personhood beyond Homo sapiens.” In In Defence of Animals. The Second Wave, edited by Peter Singer, 40–53. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006. Devine, Philip E. “The Species Principle and the Potentiality Principle.”In Bioethics. Readings & Cases, edited by Baruch A. Brody and H. Tristram Engelhardt, 136–141. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1987. Dolby, R. G. A., 2006, “The Possibility of Computers becoming Persons.” In The Person: Readings in Human Nature. William O. Stephens, 352–364.Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006. Gómez, Juan Carlos. “Are Apes Persons? The Case for Primate Intersubjectivity.” In The Animal Ethics Reader, edited by Susan J. Armstrong and Richard George Botzler, 138–143. London: Routledge, 2003. Hursthouse, Rosalind. Beginning Lives. Oxford: Blackwell, 1987. Kim, Jaegwon. Supervenience and Mind: Selected Philosophical Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Kuhse, Helga, and Peter Singer. “Should All Seriously Disabled Infants Live?” In Peter. Singer, Unsanctifying Human Life. Essays on Ethics, edited by Helga Kuhse, 233–245.. Oxford; Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2002. Kuhse, Helga. The Sanctity-of-Life Doctrine in Medicine. A Critique. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987. Lizza, John. “Persons and Death: What’s Metaphysically Wrong with Our Current Statutory Definition of Death?” The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 18 (1993): 351–374. Locke, John. “Essay Concerning Human Understanding.” In The Works of John Locke. Vol. 1. New York: Books For Libraries Press, 1969. MacIntyre, Alasdair. Dependent Rational Animals. Why Human Beings Need the Virtues. Chicago, IL: Open Court, 1999. Midgley, Mary. “Persons and Non-Persons.” In In Defence of Animals, edited by Peter Singer, 52–62. Oxford: Blackwell, 1985. Moreland, James P. “Should a Naturalist Be a Supervenient Physicalist?” Metaphilosophy 29, no. 1–2 (1999): 35–57. Nozick, Robert. Philosophical Explanations. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981. Rich, Ben A. “Postmodern Personhood: A Matter of Consciousness.” Bioethics 11, no. 3–4 (1997): 206–216. Spaemann, Robert. Persons. The Difference between “Someone” and “Something.” Translated by Oliver O'Donovan. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Stephens, William O. The Person: Readings in Human Nature. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2006. Thomas Aquinas. Commentary on Aristotle’s De Anima. Translated by Kenelm Foster and Silvester Humphries. London: Kegan Paul, 1951. Warren, Mary Anne. Moral Status: Obligations to Persons and Other Living Things. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997. PY - 2008 SN - 1426-1898 (paper) 2353-7043 (online) SP - 267–282 ST - Being a Person and Acting as a Person T2 - Forum Philosophicum TI - Being a Person and Acting as a Person UR - http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=36814877&lang=pl&site=ehost-live http://www.pdcnet.org/pdc/bvdb.nsf/purchase?openform&fp=forphil&id=forphil_2008_0013_0002_0261_0276 VL - 13 ID - 97 ER -